Our latest guest speaker at the Practice Pro Recruiting Cohort was Coach Brandon Elliott, one of the most accomplished coaches in NCAA Division III softball history. During our conversation, Coach Brandon shared a lesson he credits to Marquette men's basketball coach Shaka Smart. It perfectly described something I've seen over and over again in pitching instruction. It's also one of the key questions he asks every player—and one of the qualities he looks for when recruiting.

Are you interested...or are you committed?

Commitment means continuing to do something long after the excitement that made you start has faded. He explained that many athletes confuse being interested in softball with being committed to softball.

The Interested Athlete

An interested athlete:

• Loves playing when it's fun.

• Enjoys success.

• Is excited when things are going well.

• Works hard when it's convenient.

• Loses enthusiasm when practices become difficult.

• Wants the rewards without always embracing the work.

Think back to your last golf round. What type of player are you? Are you praying that you'll hit your next shot in the air, or are you calculating the difference between your 5- and 6-iron? Are you just trying to keep up with the rest of your group, or are you visualizing the angle of your draw?

These questions show a clear difference in competency level. One person is competing, while the other is focused on basic skill development without even knowing which skills need to be developed. She just knows she has to get the ball over there, with no idea how.

In Pitching School, we spend a lot of time helping pitchers simplify their mechanics. The simpler the motion, the easier it is to repeat. The easier it is to repeat, the more strikes they throw and the more spots they hit.

But once a pitcher is able throw strikes, coaches and parents start asking a new question:

"How do I teach pitch-calling strategy?"

It's a great question, and honestly, it's one I have spent a lot of time thinking about.

I heard that when you go into a job interview, you should tell the boss that your biggest flaw is perfectionism because it isn't really a flaw. As a pitcher and instructor, I know for a fact that it can be a flaw, and I believe sports can help people overcome it.

I think the pitching position tends to attract perfectionistic people. While I doubt any pitcher can be a complete perfectionist—otherwise she'd probably quit after a week because of all the walks, errors, and hit batters—I do think this is a topic that deserves attention. Please remember that I possess these qualities myself, so I'm writing out of an affinity for my fellow pitchers.

Do you hate to lose more than you love to win?

As we are smack dab in the middle of the NCAA collegiate season here in 2021, I’m sure many of you have had occasion to watch some of the outstanding matchups in D1 softball on ESPN or maybe even the Big 10 Network.

Preliminarily, before I dive into the main topic at hand, I want to point out the fact that there are numerous games on television multiple times a week broadcasting softball on ESPN and individual conference networks. This in and of itself is an astronomical win for our sport.

This week at pitching school we taught a mental game that just clicked.

It was built around an analogy. This week, every player drew four large bricks on a piece of paper. Inside each brick they wrote down a pitching mistake they had made. Some wrote “walked a batter.” Others wrote “hit a girl.” Some wrote “threw to the wrong base.” Once the bricks were filled in, we went around the room and asked a simple question: what did you learn from that mistake?

The lesson was this: mistakes are like bricks. If you carry them around, they are heavy. They weigh you down. They are useless. But if you learn from them, you can use them to build something great— a foundation, a wall, even a house. The same brick that drags you down can also build you up.

There are two very powerful schools of thought for how pitchers ought to attack the strike zone to be successful.

1. Attack the strike zone directly

2. Paint corners and live in the rivers

How can both be correct when they are in direct contradiction to one another? Which option ought pitchers pay heed?

To get to the bottom of this question, since I work with all of you at lessons instead of games, I went back to all of my notes from previous pitching conventions where I was able to listen to philosophies on pitch calling from the elite coaches in our game: Lonnie Alameda (Florida State), Larissa Anderson (Missouri), Beth Torina (LSU), Missy Lombardi (Oregon), Karen Weekly (Tennessee), and Stephanie VanBracklr (Alabama) just to name a few.

To me, the intermediate stage is defined by one specific transition: moving from knowing what to do to being able to do it consistently without thinking. Beginners are learning the language of pitching. Advanced pitchers don’t have to think about that language at all anymore. Intermediate pitchers are in the middle, translating what they know into what they can repeat.

At this stage, a pitcher might know how to get into reverse posture, but she can’t do it every pitch. She might leap off the mound sometimes but still step when she’s tired, distracted, or feeling pressure. Resistance shows up on one pitch and disappears on the next. Mechanics still require conscious effort, and pitchers often mentally check in with every part of their delivery instead of letting the sequence flow naturally. The goal here isn’t perfection—it’s consistency.